Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Summary

To be (or not to be) the man to save England

England’s
finest swordsman and fight choreographer at the magnificent new Globe
Theatre has hit rock bottom. John Lawley just wants to win back his
beloved, become a decent
father to his son, and help his friend William Shakespeare finish The Tragedy of Hamlet, the play that threatens to destroy him.

But
all is not fair in love and war. Dogged by his three devils—whiskey,
women, and Mad Robbie Deveraux—John is dragged by Queen Elizabeth
herself into a dangerous game
of politics, conspiracy, and rebellion. Will the hapless swordsman
figure out how to save England before it’s too late?

Brimming
with vivid periodic detail, Shakespearean drama, and irresistible wit,
Shakespeare’s Rebel is a thrilling romp through the romantic,
revolutionary times of Elizabethan
England that will delight historical fiction fans and Shakespeare
enthusiasts alike.

Chris (C.C.) Humphreys is an actor, playwright, fight choreographer and novelist. He
has written nine historical fiction novels including The FrenchExecutioner, runner up for the CWA Steel Dagger for Thrillers;
Vlad – The Last Confession, the epic novel of the real Dracula; and A Place Called Armageddon. His latest YA novel is
The Hunt of the Unicorn. His work has been translated into thirteen languages. Find out more about him on his website:
http://cchumphreys.com.

John
had endured ambushes by Spaniards and by Indians and survived them all.
But survival required a lot of fight to gain the opportune moment
for flight. And it required a sword—his sword, which was in his
scabbard over the shoulder of the man ahead.

The
big Irish spearman had only been briefly dissuaded by the blow to his
head. He came again now, yelling, point leveled. Kicking his heels
in, John drove his horse on, away from the thrust, dragging the reins
from the other man’s snatching hands. He was next to Tomkins in a trice.
“Sword!” he bellowed, leaning back to avoid the swishing cuts that were
keeping the attackers at bay. The man heard,
saw. He may have been a cur serving a dog, but he obviously had been a
soldier and he recognized bad odds and some aid. Catching the nearest
attacker with a cut that took half his ear gained him the moment to bend
at the waist toward John, and it took but
that moment to snatch out his backsword. As soon as he had it, he was
whirling it without aim; just as well as it rang off the steel of two
thrusts, knocking both aside.

The
trees pressed close, narrowing the path. The ambushers swarmed, to
John’s eye a score at least to their five survivors, but their farmyard
weapons revealed they were probably not soldiers and his escort were,
and they were mounted. Even if only four of them were actually fighting,
Sir Samuel’s spinning horse was keeping several of the assailants
occupied. John, taking advantage of height, struck
down, the folded weight of his backsword dropping as sudden as a
thunderbolt. He drove forward into Tomkins’s assailants, forcing men to
duck, plunge, weave, more concerned now with dodging steel than striking
with it. One man ran at him wielding a sickle,
leaning back to swipe. But he had a balancing hand forward, so John cut
it off.

A
terrible shriek, more sprayed blood, a slight drop in ferocity…and then
a cry louder than all the rest. The huge Irishman who had first
attacked
John was running at him again now, spear leveled—and by the way he held
it, he, at least, had held one before. Placing his head alongside his
horse’s neck, John kicked hard with his heels, and the horse leaped
forward. The running giant had not allowed for
it, nor the backsword thrust ahead that John used to deflect the spear
tip along his mount’s flank, flicking his point back in time to let the
man impale his neck upon it. As he fell, John twisted then withdrew his
blade.